Pool rules

U.S. Masters Swimming, a Sarasota-based nonprofit dedicated to encouraging adults to swim, has made the kinds of long growth strides in recent years any organization would covet.

Among the accomplishments: The membership rolls, people who pay from $39 a year, depending on state fees, are up 60% in the last decade, from 40,000 to 64,000. And the operating budget has more than doubled since 2007, from $1.1 million to nearly $3 million last year. The group long outgrew its space, in the historic Pagoda Building in downtown Sarasota, and plans to move into new offices, at least double the size, in early 2016.

The success, says Executive Director Rob Butcher, comes from two counterintuitive approaches to building a reservoir of support. One, the organization doesn't apply pressure on members to compete in events, like most other sports organizations do. Second, and the factor Butcher says has keyed the membership surge, is the group approaches its brand the old-fashioned way, where in-person handshakes take priority over viral videos.

A pinpoint example of that lies in U.S. Masters Swimming's coach and instructor classes. These are classes that teach the thousands of coaches who in turn teach the people the organization targets for membership. U.S. Masters Swimming teaches 600-700 coaches a year. All of those classes are in person, in hotel lobbies and conference rooms nationwide.

“You can't take our classes online,” says Butcher. “That's intentional on our part. We want to look each coach and instructor in the eye and let them know what our brand is about.”

All the classes are taught by U.S. Masters Swimming employees, including one who is on the road 200 days a year. In addition to brand building, Butcher, who travels about 100 days a year, says meeting coaches in person is integral to the organization's mission: to increase opportunities for more adults to swim. Anyone over 18 is eligible for membership.

“You have got to get out and be seen,” says Butcher. “You have to let people know we are not in Sarasota in an ivory tower.”

In addition to the growth in members, the organization has also seen a spike in renewals. The membership retention rate, says Butcher, has gone from about 47% five years ago to 70% this year. Members get access to sponsor discounts, competition and fitness programs and other benefits.

U.S. Masters Swimming was founded in 1970. For years the group has fought the misconception that with the name masters, it's only for former top college swimmers. But it's more of a national home base for anything swimming, from 1,500 registered programs to lobbying for swimming in communities.

The organization existed mostly with volunteers until 2008. That year the organization hired Butcher, a four-year swimmer at Georgia Southern University who competed in the 2000 U.S. Olympic Swimming Team Trials. Butcher worked in marketing for Nascar prior to U.S. Masters Swimming, and the board tasked him to not only boost membership and build the brand, but to increase the group's cachet. The organization now has 16 employees, up from two when Butcher was hired.

Butcher's biggest challenge in continuing to grow the organization is something many executives, nonprofit or otherwise, confront: hiring talented young people.

“Institutionally we are deep on knowledge,” says Butcher. “But we still don't have a deep bench.”

Follow Mark Gordon on Twitter @markigordon